Medical shelters are frequently utilized after major disasters to care for displaced individuals with severe mobility limitations and chronic medical conditions that may be inadequately addressed in general population sheltering. A retrospective chart review was conducted on 680 patients served in state-operated Medical Needs Shelters (MNS) in Louisiana following three major hurricanes from 2020 to 2021. The authors aimed to produce a descriptive analysis of the degree and variety of medical complexity of patients within the shelters to guide future shelter planning. Data illustrate demographic characteristics, clinical attributes, and outcomes among shelter patients. Patients were found to have numerous medical comorbidities, often with serious concomitant neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular, and pulmonary conditions. The shelter population was highly dependent on nursing staff for medication management and activities of daily living. They also had high utilization of respiratory therapies, hemodialysis, and wound care. Clinically significant events (e.g., falls, mental status changes, vital sign abnormalities), often resulting in transport to local hospitals, occurred in approximately 20% of all patient stays. Limitations of the study include suspected underreporting of disease prevalence and the study’s retrospective approach. Public health planners should consider the clinical needs of this population when designing strategic and tactical approaches to mass care for medically vulnerable individuals. Future research might examine which factors place individuals at higher risk for decompensation within a medical shelter.

We report here the characteristics of a high-power continuous-wave mid-infrared (mid-IR) fiber light source based on nested anti-resonant hollow-core fiber (AR-HCF) filled with HBr gas. A homemade hundred-watt-level 2 μm narrow-linewidth fiber laser is constructed as the pump source. The pump source is forward injected into the AR-HCF through a single-pass configuration. A maximum output power of 10.4 W at 4.16 μm with excellent beam quality (M2) of approximately 1.05 is achieved in a 4.8 m long AR-HCF at gas pressure of 9.9 mbar, with a slope efficiency of 20% relative to the absorbed pump power. The mid-IR light source maintains good stability during long-term operation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest output power for silica-based fiber light sources beyond 4 μm. This work demonstrates the significant capability of power scaling in a gas-filled AR-HCF mid-IR light source.

Legislative oversight is an important element of the relationship between parliament and government. However, little research explores how the characteristics of ministers incentivize MPs to oversee some more thoroughly than others. This article studies whether and why the oversight activities of parliamentarians are shaped by ministers’ gender. We argue that legislators control women ministers more tightly than men due to stereotypical competence ascriptions and perceptions of lower trustworthiness of women. Studying original data for five European democracies since 1990, we show that legislators ask more written and oral questions to women compared to men ministers. Moreover, we underpin the causal mechanisms behind this pattern using semi-structured interviews with thirty-two parliamentarians inquiring about a specific replacement in that country. Revealing gender bias in legislative oversight has broader implications for women in government and parliamentary democracies.

It is estimated that, worldwide, a new case of dementia develops every 3 s. Around 60% of cases occur in low- and middle-income countries such as Egypt, with this number expected to rise to 71% in the next 25 years. Egypt is the most populous Arabic-speaking country, containing one-quarter of the world’s Arab population. However, a majority of tools for assessing cognitive impairment have not been standardised, normed and validated according to International Test Commission guidelines, nor have they been culturally adapted, for the Egyptian population. We gathered insight from doctors and clinicians practising in Egypt to learn how they assess patients suspected of cognitive impairment. The majority reported that they used Western-made screening tools (e.g. the Montreal Cognitive Assessment), but were overwhelmingly of the view that such assessments should be standardised and adapted for Egyptians. This lack of consistent standards can lead to misclassification of cases in this lower middle-income country.

Women are the fastest growing prison population in Canada and the United States. Women who are criminalized and incarcerated are almost always prior victims of physical and/or sexual abuse, often at a young age. Foucault’s concept of the “carceral society” allows us to understand how people are deemed criminal or innocent based on a hegemonic system of “norms” which reinforce institutional violence. This article details how those who transgress the norms of being white, male, cisgender, neurotypical, and heterosexual (among others) are often subject to violence and criminalized by default, both in their homes and communities, as well as in the eyes of the state. This “home to prison pipeline” (HTPP) is especially harmful for Black women and women of colour, who face multiple, intersecting oppressions of state policy and violence. Rooted in domestic violence and carcerality in the home, the HTPP operates as a system of close surveillance, honing on those who do not conform to institutional norms. This paper is based in the testimony of incarcerated women, and draws on Foucault’s conceptions of criminality, surveillance, and the development of the modern prison, as well as that of feminist and criminology scholars.

For upper semi-continuous potentials defined on shifts over countable alphabets, this paper ensures sufficient conditions for the existence of a maximizing measure. We resort to the concept of blur shift, introduced by T. Almeida and M. Sobottka as a compactification method for countable alphabet shifts consisting of adding new symbols given by blurred subsets of the alphabet. Our approach extends beyond the Markovian case to encompass more general countable alphabet shifts. In particular, we guarantee a convex characterization and compactness for the set of blur invariant probabilities with respect to the discontinuous shift map.

Artificial intelligence (AI) presents unique regulatory challenges due to its rapid evolution and broad societal impact. Traditional ex ante regulatory approaches struggle to keep pace with AI development, exacerbating the “pacing problem” and the Collingridge dilemma. In response, experimentalist governance–particularly through regulatory sandboxes (RSs)–has emerged as a potential solution. This paper examines AI RSs within the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) from a law and economics perspective, investigating their capacity to address market and government failures and enhance regulatory efficiency compared to traditional command-and-control mechanisms. Applying an economic analysis of law framework, the paper evaluates how RSs can mitigate information asymmetries, reduce negative externalities, and facilitate iterative regulatory learning while promoting responsible AI innovation. It further analyses how RSs may correct specific government failures, including regulatory capture, rent-seeking, and knowledge gaps. Drawing comparative insights from FinTech, the paper identifies the institutional design features necessary to ensure their effectiveness and resilience. While RSs offer a flexible and innovation-friendly governance model, their success ultimately depends on sound institutional safeguards, proportionality, and alignment with broader policy objectives. The paper contributes to ongoing debates on experimentalism in AI governance by proposing design principles for effective, accountable, and adaptive sandboxes.

This study explores the rationale and impact of the Raising the Participation Age (RPA) policy within Further Education (FE), drawing on my experience lecturing Health and Social Care. Introduced following the 2007/08 financial crisis and fully implemented in 2015, the RPA requires young people to remain in education or training until the age of eighteen, aiming to address skills shortages and reduce unemployment. Existing research indicates limited understanding of the policy’s effects on FE learners, particularly within health and social care. This study examines how the RPA has shaped students’ academic and career trajectories, with a focus on the notion of ‘effective participation’. Using a combination of policy analysis and reflective qualitative insights from practice, the study identifies both benefits and limitations of the RPA. While participation rates have increased, the policy has also contributed to larger class sizes and students enrolling through compulsion rather than choice. This has led to disengagement and heightened mental health concerns, often compounded by inadequate support for diverse learning needs. The findings suggest that an emphasis on numerical participation overlooks students’ holistic development. Addressing social inequalities and reconsidering the causes of NEET status are essential to achieving meaningful engagement and improved educational and societal outcomes.

Dietary magnesium (Mg) is a potentially modifiable factor in preventing dementia, but current evidence supporting this remains insufficient and inconclusive. This study aimed to determine whether dietary Mg is associated with the risk of dementia among middle-aged and older people. Participants of this 8-year cohort study were 13,032 community-dwelling individuals aged 40–74 years. Dietary data were collected using a validated food frequency questionnaire in 2011–2013. Mg intake was adjusted for energy intake using the residual method. The outcome was newly diagnosed dementia determined using Japan’s long-term care insurance database. Covariates included demographic characteristics, body size, lifestyles, and disease histories. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine adjusted hazard ratios (HRs). The mean age of participants was 59.0 years. Dementia occurred in 148 males and 138 females. Lower quartiles of energy-adjusted Mg intake were associated with a higher risk of dementia (P for trend = 0.0410) in males, with the lowest quartile (Q1) having an elevated risk of dementia (HR = 1.73, 95% CI:1.07–2.83) compared to the highest quartile (Q4, reference); however, this association was not found in females. In a subgroup analysis by disease history in males, the HR of Q1 was attenuated in both subgroups; HR was 1.52 (95% CI:0.74–3.11) in those with a disease history and 1.40 (95% CI:0.73–2.69) in those without. In conclusion, low dietary Mg intake is associated with increased dementia risk in middle-aged and older Japanese males. However, this association may be partly attributable to underlying disease history.

Unmet healthcare needs remain a major barrier to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) globally. The intersection of aging and disability intensifies individual vulnerability and deepens structural health inequalities. Using Andersen’s Behavioural Model of healthcare utilisation as the theoretical framework, this study examines the determinants of healthcare utilisation at the individual and contextual levels among older adults with disabilities living in China. We use a dataset in China from 319 prefectures, with a total sample size of 634,445 individuals. Our findings reveal the presence of higher-income and urban-residence advantages in healthcare utilisation for older adults with disabilities in China. Regional economic development positively affects healthcare utilisation and reduces urban-rural inequality in healthcare utilisation, but its impact on income-based inequality is limited. These results highlight the need for targeted social assistance programmes for low-income groups to promote universal healthcare coverage and social equity.

This article examines whether social investment (SI) stock (education), flow (family support), and buffer (safety net) policy functions reduce poverty risk across age groups and family types. To contribute to the discussion on SI’s capability to promote the livelihoods of the vulnerable groups in society, this research focuses on the poverty risk of young adults and single mothers in the twenty-first-century Germany. Logistic regression analysis with longitudinal German Socio-Economic Panel (G-SOEP) micro data matched with various policy indicators shows that the policy functions reduce poverty risk among working age men and women more than disadvantaged young adults. The results demonstrate that flow and stock functions reinforce each other’s poverty-alleviating impact if social protection buffers are weak, more so among young women than men. Further, all SI policy functions are found to alleviate the high poverty risk of single mothers, but poverty-reducing policy complementarities take place only if family support is strong.